Mark Adamo's Little Women
New England Conservatory Opera Theater
December 9-11, 2005, Boston
For this 1998 opera, composer/librettist Mark Adamo drew on a perennial classic set in New England: Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women. This has become one of America's most-produced new operas, including a 2001 national telecast. But until the NEC production in December 2005, local audiences had not seen a production with full orchestra, sets, and costumes. The following production shots step chronologically through the opera's story, in which the world of the four March sisters (the "little women") is seen primarily as a succession of memories framed by the writer sister, Jo.